Garry Garrett's Homepage

Computers

Mini-Computers

Sun

Sun computers are my favorite computers to work with. For those of you already familiar with Sun, I am going to refer to SunOS4x./Solaris1.x as "SunOS" and SunOS5.x/Solaris2.x as "Solaris" throughout this document.

• Sun Microsystems, Makers of Sun Workstation hardware and the Solaris and SunOS operating systems ( Unix ) and Sun Workstation hardware.
• SunSolve is Sun's support server where you can search for problem reports & patches. If you have a service contract, you can get a password to access all the patches, otherwise you only get access to the recommended patches. You can also search by product
• Sun has a Phone Tree. I've been working on my own Phone Tree due to the fact that their printed one sucks.
• You can get Solaris 2.6 or 7 for Free for non-commercial use. (you pay cost of media and S&H) Solaris 8 is free, with source code, for commerical use too.
• Sparc International an oranization dedicated to publishing of Sparc information in order to keep Sparc an Open System.
• Magazines
• Usenet Groups:
• comp.unix.solaris
• comp.sys.sun.admin The FAQ for this newsgrop can be found at sns.com and msstate.edu
• comp.sys.sun.misc
• comp.windows.x and comp.windows.open-look
• Here's some useful information for Systems Administrators
• SunHelp
• Solaris Central
• Search Solaris is a search engine geared towards Solaris.
• Sun's Documentation on the web, has man pages, answerbooks, etc. in HTML format (some is in PDF format).
• Sun has also come out with SunScan2000, a tool to help you find any Sun products on your system that are not Y2K compliant.
• Sun's articles on Performance Tuning
• Adrian Cockcroft's Performance FAQ
• BigAdmin (Sun's On-Line Magazine) has a collection of articles on Performance Tuning
• There is a course on Solaris System Administration offered by Ohio State.
• Solaris 2 FAQ by Casper Dik
• Sun Admin FAQ
• The Sun Shack
• Solaris Pocket Survival Guide
• The NIS+ FAQ by Ray W. Hiltbrand or the NIS+ FAQ by Wesley J. Chun (take your pick).
• Open Look FAQ by lee@sq.com
• Celeste's Modem Tutorial by Celeste Stokely
• Colormap FAQ by David Tong
• Solaris Tips
• Configuring Solaris 7 PPP by Mike Mann. If you have a Galaticomm BBS then I have some file you might want.
• Solaris - Tuning your TCP/IP stack
• The Art of Automounting
• Solaris Users Guide from NASA (not just for rocket scientists anymore!)
• Solaris 2 Porting FAQ - tips for porting from SunOS 4.x to Solaris 2.x
• Sun Hardware Reference
• Sun Frame Buffer (video card) FAQ
• Mark Henderon has some nice information on how to reset hostid's, working with NVRAM and a whole lot of links.
• The Ultra5 page has information on Sun UltraSparc5 computers (the PCI/IDE based ones).
• Sun's at Home homepage a resource for those of you who have suns at home.
• Sun3 Archives for those of you who have the old Sun3s (pre-Sparc, Motorolla 68000 series based Suns).
• Sparc Product Directory lots of advertising oriented pages, but some good information too.
• Yet Another Solaris Security Package as the name implies, is a set of scripts and how-to's on securing Solaris.
• Solaris Security Tips
• Solaris OneLiners is a mixed bag of suggestions, some good, some bad, some ugly. It has some very good suggestions mixed in with some huge mistakes (like setting the default runlevel to "5"). Use at your own risk.
• My Sun Keyboard page
• My ISO-Latin-1 ASCII chart contains Sun "Compose" key sequences so that you can enter characters that don't exist on your keyboard.
• My page on Colors has information about adding some color to your OpenWindows programs.
• My page on Floppy Disks and Solaris
• My page on /etc/vfstab examples.
• My notes on dump, a tape backup utiltity.
• CPU upgrade manufacturers
• Weitek manufaturers of PowerUp, higher MHz MicroSparc processors
• Ross original manufacturer of the HyperSparc processor, and manufacturer of high MHz HyperSparc processors. Most recently, they have gone into the clone market.
• BrigePoint has apparently purchased Ross's old factory and is still producing HyperSparcs and keeps upping the speed.
• Fujitsu Micro a division of Fujitsu Electronics makes an upgrade MicroSparc processors.
• Cycle Computer Corp. makes replacement motherboards with faster CPUs (drop a Sparc5 processor into an IPC or say an UltraSparcIII into an UltraSparc2 box, etc.)
• Sparc or Solaris VARs
• Sun sells their products through their SunStore group.
• Optimus Solutions
• Amdahl not only is a Value Added Reseller, they also make the SPARCsummit 6400E with up to 64 HyperSparcs in it.
• The Virtual Group
• Programmer's Paradise has a sun store that includes bundled hardware and software package deals.
• DCI - portable Lunchbox computers
• SparcAlike (Clone) Makers
• Ross original manufacturer of the HyperSparc processor, and manufacturer of high MHz HyperSparc processors. Most recently, they have gone into the clone market. They also make SPARCplug, a sun workstation, complete with 1 SBUS slot, that fits in a full height drive bay of a PC.
• Cray Research inc. , known for their "super computers", used to make a 64 Sparc processor machine, the CS-6400. When SGI bought Cray, they sold this division to Sun and they applied the technology to the UltraSparc chip, making the UltraEnterprise 10,000.
• Amdahl not only is a Value Added Reseller, they also make the SPARCsummit 6400E with up to 64 HyperSparcs in it.
• Resilience makers of a 3 Sparc computer which operates in parallel and compares the results of each Sparc, voting out a bad processor, allowing for 7x24 operation even with hardware failures.
• Tadpole makes Sparc based laptop computers.
• RDI is another Sparc laptop vendor.
• Integrix one of the older clone makers
• Axil another old clone maker, now out of business.
• Western Scientific long a clone reseller, now makes their own PCI based clones and sells x86 Solaris boxes.
• Tatung known for monitors, but new in the SparcAlike field
• HAL systems a division of Fujitsu Electronics
• Rave rents Suns and other unix workstations, and sells used ones, and now makes clones.
• Network Information Systems carries their own clones using Sun motherboards for stock standard "pizza box" enclosures, and the Sun AX motherboards in stock standard PC-AT cases.
• Opus Systems - Makes a Sparc20 on a PC/AT card so that you can have a sun inside your PC. Actually it comes as 2 cards, one is the sun motherboard, the other is the graphics card which shares the PC's monitor, keyboard and mouse.
• SparcAlike (Clone) Vendors
• ZZYZX Sells Taitung and RDI.
• Western Scientific Used to sell Axil, now they sell some AXi motherboarded clones and Solaris X86 installed PCs.
• Used/Remanufactured/Refirbished Sparc Vendors
• West Coast Computer Exchange a used sun vendor, they also deal heavily in used Exabyte 8mm tape drives
• Micro Computer Exchange
• GSH Intelligent Integrated Systems, Inc.
• Piece by Piece sells systems and parts.
• TK Technologies Inc. sells systems (I am told they sell software too, but all I see on their web page is OS software).
• Rave rents Suns and other unix workstations, and sells used ones, and now makes clones.
• Computer Connection of CNY, Inc.
• ELI Systems inc.
• Radiant Resources
• World Technolgy Exchange
• GbyTheSea doesn't have a huge inventory, but has good prices.
• SunSunSun.Net
• Virtual Technology
• Solar Systems
• Marathon
• Advantec Computer Company
• Digicad Corp.
• Vibrant Technologies Inc. (reseller, carries some used).
• Reputable Systems an SGI reseller sometimes has sun parts in their MISC list
• IC Solutions
• World Data Products
• Creative Systems - carries Sun hardware and hard drives.
• Encore Technologies - Specializes in RS/6000, but carries other refirbished systems
• PowerStar Inc. - Their page has lots of graphics and little information, but they do sell used suns.
• Spring Lake Computer Exchange
• EM Power Group has their site setup so that you bid on their computers.
• Acrara Ltd. in the U.K.
• Gall in Germany
• Dobtec in Germany
• SBus card makers
• Space Electronics graphics accelerators
• Parallax Graphics - video cards (video capture, NTSC, PAL, etc.)
• Performance Technologies - SCSI cards, Ethernet cards, etc.
• Aurora Technologies - Multiple serial port cards, SBUS expansion chassis, Token Ring cards
• Central Data multiple serial ports via SCSI
• UltraView - A/D converter cards
• IBM - Serial Storage Architecture cards (to talk to SSA drives - an alternative to SCSI)
• Misc. Hardware vendors
• Artecon makers of drawers to mount Suns in standard 19" equipment racks
• Network Technologies Inc., makers of video switches, etc.
• Rose Electronics, makers of video switches, etc.
• Network Technologies Inc. makers of video switches, cables, etc.
• Mouse-Trak makers of trackballs
• Ultra Spec carries a variety of cables.
• EnterpriseCable Solutions carries a variety of cables.
• I have a separate page on Software
• FTP sites of interest for Solaris and Unix in general
• Misc
• Solidstor is a stand-alone backup solution using IBM's ADSTAR (ADSM) software running on a Sun UltraSparc with DLT drives.